The Engraving of a Ukrainian Artist Will Fly to The Moon

Canadian physicist and artist Samuel Peralto, together with NASA, will send a multimedia archive called "Lunar Codex" to the Moon, containing works of art created by Earthlings. Also, the artwork of Ukrainian artist Olesia Dzhuraieva will fly into space.

This was reported by The New York Times.

"This is the largest, most comprehensive project of launching cultural works into space. There is nothing like it anywhere else," said Peralto.

Lunar Codex is a "collection of works by tens of thousands of creative artists from all over the world, launched in time capsules to the Moon." It includes digitized copies of paintings, books, magazines, as well as poetry, music, films, and even podcasts from 157 countries worldwide.

The idea of the project arose during the Covid-19 pandemic. At that time, Peralto wanted to send only his own works on a cosmic journey, but later decided to expand the project's boundaries. The main requirement for the artists was that their works had already been presented at exhibitions, in catalogs, or anthologies.

Among the works that will be sent to the Moon are linocuts and woodcuts by Ukrainian artist Olesia Dzhuraieva. The uniqueness of the artworks lies in the use of Ukrainian black soil during their creation.

The Ukrainian artist had to leave her home in Kyiv due to the unprovoked Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Canadian Peralta had previously acquired some of her works and, after the start of the war, contacted the artist expressing his support and offering her participation in the project.

"This project is life-affirming, with thoughts about the future. It's just what I needed in those first months," emphasized Dzhuraieva.

Peralta himself considers his project as a certain "message in a bottle to the future," that in times of war, pandemics, and economic shocks, people still find time to create beauty.

As a reminder, NASA recently launched a program called "Message in a Bottle," which offers earthlings to send their names on a cosmic journey to Mars. The spacecraft is planned to fly past Jupiter's moon "Europa" about 50 times and then fly another half a billion kilometers while collecting data about the underground ocean, icy crust, and atmosphere of the Moon.

Anyone interested can join the initiative by sending their name before December 31, 23:59, 2023.